Social groups with diverse personalities mitigate physiological stress in a songbird

Social groups often consist of diverse phenotypes, including personality types, and this diversity is known to affect the functioning of the group as a whole. Social selection theory proposes that group composition (i.e. social environment) also influences the performance of individual group members...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Biological sciences, 2021-01, Vol.288 (1943), p.20203092-20203092
Main Authors: Vágási, Csongor I, Fülöp, Attila, Osváth, Gergely, Pap, Péter L, Pénzes, Janka, Benkő, Zoltán, Lendvai, Ádám Z, Barta, Zoltán
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Biological Evolution
Evolution
Exploratory Behavior
Personality
Sparrows
Stress, Physiological
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Social groups often consist of diverse phenotypes, including personality types, and this diversity is known to affect the functioning of the group as a whole. Social selection theory proposes that group composition (i.e. social environment) also influences the performance of individual group members. However, the effect of group behavioural composition on group members remains largely unexplored, and it is still contentious whether individuals benefit more in a social environment with homogeneous or diverse behavioural composition. We experimentally formed groups of house sparrows with high and low diversity of personality (exploratory behaviour), and found that their physiological state (body condition, physiological stress and oxidative damage) improved with increasing group-level diversity of personality. These findings demonstrate that group personality composition affects the condition of group members and individuals benefit from social heterosis (i.e. associating with a diverse set of behavioural types). This aspect of the social life can play a key role in affiliation rules of social animals and might explain the evolutionary coexistence of different personalities in nature.
ISSN:0962-8452
1471-2954
DOI:10.1098/rspb.2020.3092